Water, water everywhere, nor any a drop to drink...

Two cases highlight how governance of our water is struggling for credibility.

First, in Hawkes Bay where over 5,000 residents of Havelock North (pop. 14,000) were struck by gastroenteritis after drinking the local water. The cause of the outbreak was E. coli but the source of the E. coli is not yet confirmed, though the intensification of farming (and particularly dairying) is thought by many commentators to be the problem.

Minister for the Environment Nick Smith in his recent State of the Environment speech at Lincoln University acknowledges Maori have an integral role in ensuring water quality:

Water issues often come down to a clash of values between environmentalists and land owners. Maori have a foot in both camps and are proving to be valuable bridge builders over these troubled waters.

Initial data from GNS shows water in the Havelock aquifer was less than a year old when it should have been 50, which suggests an infrastructure problem which ultimately links back to governance and, dare I say, ownership.

Havelock North residents walking for water right now! (Sept 3rd).

Now we all now the NZ government's position: no one owns the water. Well, that's working out great for sales of toilet paper in Havelock North but most of us forsee only more costs and risks. Des Ratima of the Takitimu District Maori Council is quite explicit about the fault:

"The aquifier sits below recognised polluted river called the Tukituki which comes down from central Hawkes Bay full of faeces, both human and animal. That's how central Hawkes Bay disposes of its sewage. It's been told by regional council to sort that out and so they've gone from river to land based sewerage dispersal. Well, that's just arrogant again because that's finding its way back into the water system,"

Maori are not alone in thinking human and industry waste need to be separated from the land and water we source our sustenance from. Papatuanuku is being maltreated and like any mother, when she is sick, we are not well.

Another example is from Canada where oil leaking into the North Saskatchewan River has exposed local governance - private and public -as not being up to the task of protecting the most basic resource, namely clean water.

I visited Saskatoon in the second week of August and, by chance, met two First Nations activists working to draw attention to the disaster (languaging is important; 'spill' doesn't describe the catastrophe that oil brings to socio-ecological systems).

Emil Bell and Tyrone Tootootsis have established the Kisiskatchewan Water Alliance Network. Several organisations have endorsed KWAN, including Idle No More, the Saskatchewan Environmental Society and the North Saskatchewan River Basin Council.

Emil Bell (l) and Tyrone Tootootsis (r).

Emil staged a hunger strike to protest the oil spill.


A collaboration between Idle No More, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Council of Canadians, the National Aboriginal People’s Circle, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (Prairie Region) led to a report on the disaster. One of the findings is that the James Smith Cree Nation need to be supported in its effort to mitigate and monitor the damage to their traditional territory.

We might hope that Ngati Kahungunu will also be supported to ensure water improves within their territory. 

A significant advance in both Hawkes Bay and Saskatchewan would be the formal incorporation of Indigenous voices into the governance of water. Disasters such as the poisoning of Havelock North and North Saskatchewan River provide the opportunity to reinsert Indigenous voices where they should never have been excluded.

'Water Underground'

Water still a potential graveyard for politicians it seems.

This post content through from an ex-Lincolnite, promoting a song by Anthonie Tonnon...

"We're used to vocal (often artistic in one way or another) individuals like Sam Mahon who have been highly critical of the removal of the democratically elected Councillors in 2010 and the associated 'grab' for Canterbury's water. In recent times there has emerged another artist who has joined the fray  - though from a different perspective. Former Dunedin singer-songwriter Anthonie Tonnon, who I'd argue is also a great storyteller having seen him play live recently, has written and sung about arguably the core the government's 2010 decision Canterbury's groundwater, the Water Underground..."

I'm still in awe 

at how you pulled it all off 

and driving through the drylands 

seeing irrigators installed 

I think about the coup 

you turned the rules on themselves 

you engineered that miracle 

to free the water underground 

they said you'd never take the council down 

but you just found your way around 

called it a national crisis 

you were in bed with the press 

you understood from experience how to 

make it fast and hard to digest oh you 

left them dumbfounded, unemployable 

chose their replacements yourself 

all their science from the cities couldn't keep you 

from the water underground 

they said you'd never take the council down 

but you just found your way around 

nine years out of power 

you had time to think it out 

she was one of those friends 

followed the rabbit hole to its end 

and you knew what it meant 

to get involved 

and the industry couldn't help you 

no, none of the farmers who owed you 

they let you fight in that pit alone 

but with elections still on hold 

with the cattle turning up by the truckload 

you can hear the drills working now 

on that water underground

Ecuadorian issues

I rarely post or reblog more than a few of all the requests and protests I receive. This has just come through via the IPSG (Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers).

Brief synposis: 

• The Ecuadorian government has recently detained several environmental leaders, and is threating more with the same charges of terrorism.  
• They shut down one very well-respected environmental organization earlier this year (Pachamama Foundation) and others know their existence is in danger.  
• The lack of transparency, accountability and fair play in the process that is currently happening to (in)validate the 700,000+ signatures collected asking for a general referendum so the Ecuadorian citizens can vote on whether or not to drill for oil in Yasuni is astounding.  I have a lot of friends involved in that effort and they have witnessed first-hand how government officials have "disappeared" certain documents which will invalidate thousands of signatures, making the Consulta a no-go, when the legal process to convoke a Consulta has been followed.
• Drilling for oil in Yasuni is an issue of environmental and human rights concern as it is not only one of the most biodiverse places in the world, but there are 2 indigenous groups living in voluntary isolation there - it is their territory.  
• Many of my friends have received threatening phone calls from government or military sources. 
• Heres is up to the minute info on what´s happening around the Yasuni issue here:  https://www.facebook.com/YASunidos?ref=br_tf.  

Petition:https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_Yasuni_the_Last_Wonder_of_the_Amazon

DCD and the 'Sleeping giant' that is/was the Maori economy

But are the dogs running or sleeping?

Me and dogs.

I don't mind dogs. We got a Dalmatian last year, Lila, lovely dog, killed a massive rat in our lounge once.

And I use to fish the Tutaekuri River which ran a few minutes walk from our whare in Kauri Street, Taradale. Dogs can be kai.

looking upstream of Tutaekuri, towards the Otatara pa .

I expect to see at least two guard dogs in every truck yard I pass, like the yard on the corner of Vickerys and Washbourne Roads, back of Sockburn by the old airbase. One of the dogs there - they used Dobermans, Rottweilers, the occasional Alsatian- was three-legged. Dangerous work, if you can get it.

sunrise through the HotDip galvanising plant

the old burger bunker, a wreck before the quake...

Nice.
In Capitalist korero there is the term running dogs of capitalism...which Wikipedia tells me is a "literal translation into English of the Chinese/Korean communist pejorative zǒu gǒu 走狗, meaning lackey or lapdog, an unprincipled person who helps or flatters other, more powerful and often evil people. It is derived from the eagerness with which a dog will respond when called by its owner, even for mere scraps.


I also know to Let sleeping dogs lie, remember the film? I was somewhat stunned by the synopsis:

 Following the break-up of his marriage caused by his wife's affair with another man named Bullen (Mune), "Smith" (Neill) arranges to live on the Coromandel peninsula on an island owned by a Maori tribe. Meanwhile, political tensions escalate as an oil embargo leaves the country in an energy crisis. Tensions boil over into a civil war and guerrilla activity. However, Smith enjoys his peaceful island life and has little interaction with the rest of society.

Well, we all know what happens to Smith. (Actually, I forgot, so I had to look it up.)

What we don't know is what's happening to the 'Sleeping giant' of NZ Inc that is the Maori Economy?

With so much riding on the dairy sector, it poaka-fisted attempts to control korero on its soil management strategies must. give. one. pause. to. think.

I recall Ingrid Collins, chair of Parae Whangara B5 which took out Te Ahuwhenua, saying we/they had reached the limits of intensification, and they're mainly sheep and beef.

Pity the lowlands.

i think this water is looking for the Heathcote...near Tower Junction...

Without wanting to oversimplify, the reason I'm posting on what was an obscure chemical (albeit one developed on the very campus from which this is posted...) is that Rod Oram touches on the risk to our Maori economy, or at least that chunk still on the land. DairyNZ and Fonterra, through supporting/contracting research on technological solutions to the environmental (and hence social and market contexts), are reaching those limits, both limits to the land, the water, their ecosystems, and to people, the hours they can work, the injuries they can carry.

We've seen the invisible hand reaching to the Pacific all those years ago. Now its is grasping, pummeling, clenching, all too desperate, and all too visible if you know where to look.

I think we are seeing the extremities of the logic of accumulating capital. Maori have seen the land squeezed from our hands, the blood wrung out of us as workers but still. it. goes. on.

So this latest corporate fuck up (and perhaps more in the arrogance of the political arm rather than the technocratic) is merely the latest incarnation of capital's logic. More people are aware, more focused questions can be asked, more scrutiny of the answers is possible.

Ain't the end. Ain't even the beginning of the end. But it might be the end of the beginning.

Tautoko Idle No More

The value of Twitter, or at least the people I follow, is driven home by the Idle No More protests of First Nations fellow travellers in Canada. Their manifesto reads a follows...

We contend that:
The Treaties are nation to nation agreements between First Nations and the Crown who are sovereign nations. The Treaties are agreements that cannot be altered or broken by one side of the two Nations. The spirit and intent of the Treaty agreements meant that First Nations peoples would share the land, but retain their inherent rights to lands and resources. Instead, First Nations have experienced a history of colonization which has resulted in outstanding land claims, lack of resources and unequal funding for services such as education and housing.

We contend that:
Canada has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world by using the land and resources. Canadian mining, logging, oil and fishing companies are the most powerful in the world due to land and resources. Some of the poorest First Nations communities (such as Attawapiskat) have mines or other developments on their land but do not get a share of the profit. The taking of resources has left many lands and waters poisoned – the animals and plants are dying in many areas in Canada. We cannot live without the land and water. We have laws older than this colonial government about how to live with the land.

We contend that:
Currently, this government is trying to pass many laws so that reserve lands can also be bought and sold by big companies to get profit from resources. They are promising to share this time…Why would these promises be different from past promises? We will be left with nothing but poisoned water, land and air. This is an attempt to take away sovereignty and the inherent right to land and resources from First Nations peoples.

We contend that:
There are many examples of other countries moving towards sustainability, and we must demand sustainable development as well. We believe in healthy, just, equitable and sustainable communities and have a vision and plan of how to build them.

Please join us in creating this vision.

 

 

 

I see crazed and crazy posts on the blog, but also reasoned and compassionate replies. In a world of re-indigenising humanity, this marks an important time.

 

Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

Maori, Water, the Markets, and Surety

We're always told the markets like surety, they like to know what's going to happen. So much interest will turn to the remarkable developments in the claim for water by Maori. First a decision in the Paki v. Attorney General case in which  the descendants of the owners of five blocks of land along the Waikato River at Pouakani have claimed the Crown acquisition of the riverbed was in breach of the Crown's duties.

Essentially this turns on an interpretation of the river being navigable under s14 of the Coal Mines Amendment Act (1903). Where a stretch of river is not navigable, an enforceable interest to the riverbed might remain in the hands of the Maori customary owners.

Some nice turns of phrase by Mai Chen: The philosopher Heraclitus said that you cannot step into the same river twice. Change is constant. It remains to be seen whether the Government finds the Supreme Court's decision in Paki "navigable".

                                                               Venn Young and Eva Rickard 
Source: http://envirohistorynz.com/2010/08/15/from-adversity-comes-opportunity-the-unlikely-origins-of-qeii-trust/

Then the Maori Council takes an urgent case to the Waitangi Tribunal seeking to stop the governments planned sale of State Owned Assets: Mighty River Power, Genesis, Meridian and Solid Energy.

The PM has come out firing:"We don't believe anybody owns water. What we do accept is that people own water rights. We don't think the sale of 49 per cent of Mighty River Power in any way impinges on those water rights."

He goes on: "The Waitangi Tribunal's rulings are not binding on the Government, so we could choose to ignore what findings they might have - I'm not saying we would, but we could." 

Of course if the Government refuses to act on the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Maori Council could take its case to the High Court. 

We're along way from the surety that markets desire. Good job.

Recommended Reading: The Legal Voice of Māori in Freshwater Governance: A Literature Review, by Jacinta Ruru

We are treated with disdain

I offer the word disdain to describe how we are being treated.

It has perhaps been there from the start, 1642, 1767 and all that. Certainly the Clarke government did itself no favours and will struggle to retrieve Maori support in the near future. But what is so galling now is the combination of feigned ignorance and actual ignorance.

Did the Prime Minister really think that reference to the Treaty of Waitangi in NZ legislation is 'largely symbolic'? Or were they all tripping.

Andrew Geddis does a nice demolition job on the PM's intellectual and attitudinal failings and usefully gives a link to a speech by Justice Robin Cooke that serves to remind us how serious the law is.

This unfolding disaster - the alienation of NZ assets through the continued marginalisation of this country's Indigenous Peoples - is not, of course, the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

http://www.homeschoolonthecroft.com/2011/01/quotes-from-sir-winston-churchill.html

Installation by Manu Scott.

The Treaty partners position already decided?

Seems the government wanted no mention of any Treaty clause attached to the sale of bits of Aotearoa/NZ...

A draft document posted online for a few minutes showed someone in the government is not that keen on adhering to any sort of obligations to the Treaty.

Two things.

First, these sorts of blunders do nothing to reassure me the government is actually a competent manager of this country.

Second, if the words of John Key, Bill English and others mean little given their actions in this instance, what do their words mean in other instances?

I do think it a bit rich that new Labour leader David Shearer is castigating John Key that  'so-called consultation has now been exposed as a sham.' It was, among other concerns, Labour's lack of consultation over the Foreshore and Seabed that saw the formation of the Maori Party and loss of the admittedly threadbare relationship between Labour and Maori.

Maori Party may quit government

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...

The Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall, says provisions protecting land under Treaty claims would still apply. However, Section 9 is under review...


What's Section 9 I hear you ask?

9. Treaty of Waitangi

• Nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

  
  

  
  

  Oh dear. They wouldn't ignore Maori concerns again. 

  
  

  Would they? 

Indigenous Anarchism

Wondering what to post on this, the  last day of a bad year for too many people in Otautahi, I'm drawn to fleshing out the links between Indigenous political strategies and anarchism. The majority of my (positive) experiences of being Maori echo the anarcho-syndicalist tactics. I'm particularly drawn to the concept that political parties are not only unnecessary for social change but actually hold it back. What can we hope from the Maori Party, or Mana? More Maori in the decision-making process?  What will a reformed Labour Party offer? A bigger slice of the (still shrinking) pie! Indeed the common tenor of complaints and protest seem to be exactly what anarchists are calling for: 'the abolition of economic monopolies and of all political and social coercive institutions.'



Source: http://anarchismtoday.org/coppermine/displayimage/album=3/pos=1.html

Some basic gleanings...

1. Everything is alive.
2. Nothing is an object.
3. Memory is ascendant.
4. An indigenous anarchism is an anarchism of place.
5. You are an irremovable part of an extended family.

I'm further drawn to the eradication of borders, not least because of my insight from a trip to Arizona two years ago. Being an island dwelling people, Polynesians have a different history but remain committed to respectful visitation and proud hosting. Essentially capital is not just free to move but compelled to be mobile. The movement of people, however, is constrained, controlled, and coerced (as labour). Land - the other component in the capitalist triptych - is likewise co-opted into the production of profit. We seem no better off for our willingness to engage in the equation...

Once more Maori enter the New Year with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

                                                                 Kia pai to Tau Hou!
                                                                          Arohanui
 
 Readings
Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century by Vadim Damier
Anarcho-Syndicalism by Rudolf Rocker


Source: http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/7822